The Benefits of Stress Baking and Cocktails
by Lady Hallen
Summary: Reborn isn't exactly concerned as he is curious. He has lasted a week of little to no sleep, and that was when he was studying for his doctorate. He is wondering on what has such a sunny and optimistic woman so stressed out.


**For further worldbuilding questions and prompts, visit me at tumblr under the same penname.**

* * *

Reborn stares at the _basket_ of cookies on his welcome mat.

He knows who it's from, given that he's received similar packages from that person for the last few years. But lately, he thinks back on the last couple of days of baskets of cookies being dropped on his welcome mat, the volume has increased.

Reborn knows that his neighbor stress bakes.

When the security consultant down the hall had moved in, she'd knocked on all the doors and asked for their favorite pastries. She'd even given them warnings that she tended to bake a lot when she was stressed, and since the finished goods would eventually end up with them, she might as well bake what they would eat.

She'd been received favorably in their hall.

Still, he knows he's not the only one concerned. The door from the unit across his opens and the woman gives a concerned look at her own basket of lemon tarts.

He stares too. That is a _lot_ of lemon tarts.

"It's almost been a week," she sighs, clearly addressing him.

Reborn bends down to pick up his basket and has to agree with her. It's not only the frequency that has increased, but the quantity as well.

"Good lord, what on earth is going on with her life?" slips out of his mouth.

The woman's brows wrinkle with concern. "She can't be getting any sleep, at the rate she's baking these. I now for a fact that all of us in this floor have different pastries we like."

"Huh," Reborn says with a start. "She's making eight different pastries every night. In volume. Or does she include the other floors too?"

Both of them, as one, realize that there are four floors on the building occupied. Being a math professor, Reborn finishes the multiplication faster.

"If she's baking for the whole building, then she's baking almost thirty different pastries every night," he says, voice rising with incredulity.

Luce's lips purse in concern. "The poor dear. It's almost been a week since this started. Professor Sinclair, we must stage an intervention."

Reborn isn't exactly concerned as he is curious. He has lasted a week of little to no sleep, and that was when he was studying for his doctorate. He is wondering on what has such a sunny and optimistic woman so stressed out.

"I hear her coming home around three," he tells her. "I get home around four today."

Luce works from home. "I'll waylay her before she locks herself in. I think I'll make something alcoholic," the woman nods. "I think we'll need it."

Reborn eyes the mischief in her eyes and says, "I'll pick up something rich, decadent and completely sinful."

She beams at him.

.

* * *

Harry comes home, completely drained and tries not to slump with exhaustion.

It had to be this week, she whines in the privacy of her mind. The week when her parents announced a vacation, her Uncle Remus declared sick and Uncle Sirius vanishing off the face of the earth to do Merlin knows what.

Hermione and Ron are heaven-sent and she does not know what she did to deserve them.

She jingles her keys, trying to find the right key and is startled when the door to the right opens. Miss Luce, likes lemon tarts. Her dark head pops out of the door and she smiles when she sees Harry.

"Harry dear," she says in that kind tone that makes Harry want to melt. "You're home! I'm having a cocktail party and you need to help me drink it."

Harry's eyebrows go up. The pink flush on the old woman's cheeks make a lot more sense. "Miss Luce, you're drinking at this hour?" And at your age, Harry wants to add. Alcohol did a lot of nasty things to the liver. She did not care what Russians said about it being a health drink.

"I am celebrating that I am alive," she announces vibrantly. "You should join me. You young people are always so serious."

Those words are an almost exact repeat of Uncle Sirius when he went to sky dive with a shifty organization.

Harry finds herself smiling involuntarily. "Alright, I'll join you. If only to stop yourself from destroying your liver."

.

* * *

Reborn knocks on Luce's door, not knowing what he is expecting, only it isn't the sight of the security consultant half naked and holding a glass of something pink and bubbly. With a mini-umbrella.

He's sort of aware that his mouth is open, but he can only focus on that tiny slip of a bra holding her breasts and her skirt riding up showing a creamy thigh.

"Harry dear, whose at the door?" Luce's voice calls out, snapping Reborn out of his staring.

"It's Mr. Butter Pecan Cookies," she shouts back. "The one with a voice like a phone sex operator."

Reborn can feel his cheeks burning and he knows he should probably do something to save his dignity. His tongue just can't seem to work.

"Let him in," Luce answers. "He promised to bring something sinful."

That…does not help him.

Harry, the half-naked security consultant, clamps down on his arm and drags him inside.

A couple of well-mixed cocktails makes his surprise go down, and he can fully appreciate the sight of a drunk Harry twirling around Luce's living room.

"So why have you been stress baking?" he asks her before he forgets what this intervention is all about.

She stops dancing. "My ex-boyfriend showed up at work. He wants a full security detail done on his mansion, because he's so worried for his wife," she says venomously, oddly coherent for someone so drunk.

Reborn blinks. "And he's a prick, I take it?" he prods.

Harry sits down on the table and he tries not to stare at what that does to her skirt. He's a gentleman, thank you. "I broke up with him, so I don't really have a say," she says firmly, mostly to herself. "But he's doing this to rub this in my face. Of what I could have had if I stayed, the asshole."

It's a bit unnerving, because he had pegged her as the sort of person who didn't like to think the worst of people. That sort of thinking is his job.

"Are you sure this isn't just because he wants to upgrade his security?" he points out.

Her glare is ineffectual because there's a cocktail umbrella tucked behind one ear. It's too cute.

"I'm not being a bitch here," she says. "It's logical, because that's the kind of asshole Draco was. Still is. He's the sort of asshole that puts other assholes to shame."

At his unimpressed look, she elucidates further. "Look, Mr. Butter Pecan. I know for a fact that the one who did his security is Vongola."

Vongola, one of the best in the business. So maybe the ex-boyfriend is just being a dick.

"Huh, what an asshole," he says, conceding the point.

She beams at him. "Thank you. Miss Luce, another Martini please."

Luce serves the drinks with a smile at both of them. "Drink up, the both of you. I know your jobs are tiring. I mean, I did spend time as a teenager bartending for college. Professor Sinclair, I know you'll like this. It has espresso in it."

If he recalls correctly, he's just been handed Nicolashka, the one with espresso powder. He approves.

A point niggles at Reborn though. "You can't call her Luce and then call me Mr. Butter Pecan. My name is Reborn."

She smiles at him, slowly and with intent. "Alright. Reborn."

Oh dear.

.

* * *

Harry wakes up and knows that moving would be a _bad idea_.

She doesn't have much experience in being hungover, since she doesn't really like alcohol. But she had tried it just once and never forgot the experience.

Tentatively, she tries opening one eye and shuts it again.

"Merlin's fucking pants," she whispers. Anything louder is another bad idea. "How much did I fucking drink?"

Bits and snippets of yesterday filter in and she feels the mortification just waiting to jump on her. Yes, Harry, you did strip when the alcohol warmed you enough. Yes Harry, you did flirt with Mr. Butter Pecan. Yes Harry, you were all over him yesterday. Miss Luce was laughing at you.

Hiding her whimper under her pillow, Harry just decides to call it a day and sleep it off. Because she has to muster some courage to look at her neighbors in the eye again and if she does, then all of her effort will be for her neighbors and none of it on being professional and she might just brain Draco with a brick if he smirked at her one more time.

Sadly, the world doesn't care and her phone rings. Harry wants to die. Adulting is so hard.

Sucking in a breath, Harry answers and immediately regrets it. She doesn't know when Hermione's voice became so sharp, but she doesn't like it.

"Harry, where are you?" Hermione asks in lieu of a greeting. "Malfoy is asking for you again."

After yesterday's drinking and the companionship of two people who looked at the world and just ran out of fucks to give, the words come out of her mouth before she can stop herself. "Tell him he has to settle for one of the junior consultants. I've run the schematics already and they've just got to adjust it for his pet peacocks so they don't trigger the alarm."

"Harry, are you alright?" Hermione's amazed bewilderment could be heard through the phone. "You sound different."

Harry finally releases the groan that's been sitting on her chest since Draco showed up at her office.

"Hermione," she says seriously. "I'm hungover. I flirted with the hottest man I've ever met yesterday. He's my neighbor. My other neighbor watched this happen. She's as old as my mother. She watched me strip in her living room. I'm not sure if it's the embarrassment or the headache, but I really can't think of Draco right now."

After all that…her problems at work seem easier to handle, somehow.

Hermione laughs, long and loud. It's a relieved sound that makes Harry smile. "Harry, you've been so tolerant of Malfoy that Ron was planning bloody murder on the side. I was planning to help him, so thank god. Anyone else who'd do that to you, you'd brain them with your shoe."

She had been acting too polite. Thank god for cocktails.

.

* * *

It would end there, if Harry had been the sort to settle for the status quo.

Except she isn't and Harry remembers that Reborn didn't exactly rebuff her advances as much as tell her he wanted to sleep with her sober.

And somehow, waiting for her sober consent made it really hot.

So there she is, knocking on her neighbors door at the precise time she knows when he's cleaning up from dinner. (She can tell, because the sound of La traviata starts to play.)

"Yes?" he asks. He looks at her like he wants to eat her. Harry has absolutely no complaints.

"I'm not drunk," she says in lieu of a greeting. She doesn't look away from him either.

He smiles a slow thing that makes her spine tingle. "No, you aren't."

.

* * *

 **Reviews are so nice.**

 **~hallen out**


End file.
